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Do you know what you are glugging onto your food? Does your extra virgin really have any health benefits? Welcome to the murky world of olive oil

The process by which I begin to deprogramme my mind of everything I had always
thought I knew about olive oil begins not in a picturesque olive grove in
the Tuscan hills but under a strip light in aisle 7, in Waitrose. The World
Cuisine section. In front of me – I count them – are 42 different bottles of
olive oil, ranging in colour from clover green to jaundice yellow.

Of the 42 bottles, 36 are extra virgin. In the Tesco Metro down the road and
the Sainsbury’s across the park, the number of bottles of extra virgin
shrinks to 9